After a 737 Max door panel blew out over Portland, Oregon, last week, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered the temporary grounding of Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft until emergency inspections were performed. "Alaska and United Airlines, which operate most of the Max 9s in use in the United States, said on Monday that they discovered loose hardware on the panel when conducting preliminary inspections on their planes," reported the New York Times. Now, U.S. aviation regulators say they may strip Boeing of its right to conduct some of its aircraft inspections. The Financial Times reports: Mike Whitaker, FAA administrator, said the agency was "exploring" its options for using an independent third-party to oversee inspections of Boeing's aircraft and its quality controls. "It is time to re-examine the delegation of authority and assess any associated safety risks," he said. "The grounding of the 737-9 and the multiple production-related issues identified in recent years [at Boeing] require us to look at every option to reduce risk."

The regulator also said it plans to immediately increase its oversight of Boeing's production. The FAA opened an investigation on Thursday into whether the planes Boeing builds match the specifications it has laid out. The FAA said it will audit the 737 Max 9 production line and its suppliers "to evaluate Boeing's compliance with its approved quality procedures," with further audits conducted as necessary.

Washington Senator Maria Cantwell sent a letter (PDF) yesterday to the FAA questioning the agency's role in inspecting aircraft manufactured by Boeing. Cantwell said she asked a year ago for an audit of certain areas related to Boeing's production, and the regulator told her it was unnecessary. "Recent accidents and incidents -- including the expelled door plug on Alaska Airlines flight 1282 -- call into question Boeing's quality control," she said. "In short, it appears that FAA's oversight processes have not been effective in ensuring that Boeing produces aeroplanes that are in condition for safe operation."

Brandon Vigliarolo reports via The Register: A US federal tax change that took effect in 2022 thanks to a time-triggered portion of the Trump-era Tax Cuts and Jobs Act may leave entrepreneurs with massive tax bills. Section 174 of the US tax code -- prior to the passage of the 2017 TCJA -- allowed companies to handle the tax bill of their specified research or experimental (SRE) budgets in one of two ways: Either capitalized and amortized over the course of five years, or written off annually. Of the many things covered by SRE, most crucially for our purposes is "any amount paid or incurred in connection with the development of any software," which includes developer salaries.

The TCJA included a post-dated change to Section 174 that took effect on January 1, 2022 that would no longer allow companies to automatically expense any SRE costs on an annual basis. Going forward they'd all have to be amortized over five years -- a potential budgetary disaster for companies that haven't been doing so in the past. As pointed out by Gergely Orosz of The Pragmatic Engineer, a theoretical company with $1m in revenue and $1m of software developer salary costs could have claimed it had no taxable profit in 2021. The required SRE amortization rate of 10 percent would mean the org had $900k in profit in 2022 -- and a six-figure tax bill coming due the following year. This isn't theoretical -- Orosz said that he recently spoke to several engineers and entrepreneurs who've been surprised with massive tax bills that have led to layoffs, reduced hiring, and left some companies in financial distress.

House of Representatives member Ron Estes (R-KS), who last year sponsored a bill to restore Section 174 to its pre-TCJA option to expense or amortize, likewise said an a late-2023 op-ed that the changes have led to R&D at US companies -- not just in the tech sector -- shrinking considerably. "Since amortization took effect, the growth rate of R&D spending has slowed dramatically from 6.6 percent on average over the previous five years to less than one-half of 1 percent over the last 12 months," Estes said. "The [R&D] sector is down by more than 14,000 jobs." [...] That, and the Section 174 changes make the US far less enticing as a place to open a business or do R&D, and the only one with such forced amortization in the world. Not much is being done to fix the TCJA problem with Section 174. The Estes bill, along with a related bill introduced in the Senate in March 2023, have not undergone a committee hearing since their introduction. The White House hasn't mentioned anything about Section 174.

Meanwhile, the IRS released a notice (PDF) reminding tax payers about Section 174's changes.

Restrictive US policies limiting advanced chip exports to China have done little to dampen Qualcomm's enthusiasm for the world's second-largest economy. From a report: In an interview at CES 2024 in Las Vegas, CEO Cristiano Amon expressed confidence about Qualcomm's business in the country, its largest market by revenue. "If you have a leading technology, you're going to have a big business in China," he said. The San Diego-based firm finds itself in a difficult situation, as the White House and Congress ramp up a pressure campaign to curb the sale of US chips and chipmaking tools to China, citing national security concerns. The Biden administration has argued that China's access to advanced semiconductors could aid military advancements.

Meanwhile, in China, government agencies and state-owned firms have widened their ban on Apple's iPhones for employees. Qualcomm is one of Apple's biggest suppliers. China remains the largest semiconductor market in the world, with sales in the country accounting for one-third of the global market, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association.

Security researchers warned Apple as early as 2019 about vulnerabilities in its AirDrop wireless sharing function that Chinese authorities claim they recently used to track down users of the feature, the researchers told CNN, in a case that experts say has sweeping implications for global privacy. From a report: The Chinese government's actions targeting a tool that Apple customers around the world use to share photos and documents -- and Apple's apparent inaction to address the flaws -- revive longstanding concerns by US lawmakers and privacy advocates about Apple's relationship with China and about authoritarian regimes' ability to twist US tech products to their own ends.

AirDrop lets Apple users who are near each other share files using a proprietary mix of Bluetooth and other wireless connectivity without having to connect to the internet. The sharing feature has been used by pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong and the Chinese government has cracked down on the feature in response. A Chinese tech firm, Beijing-based Wangshendongjian Technology, was able to compromise AirDrop to identify users on the Beijing subway accused of sharing "inappropriate information," judicial authorities in Beijing said this week. Although Chinese officials portrayed the exploit as an effective law enforcement technique, internet freedom advocates are urging Apple to address the issue quickly and publicly.